Auma

Exploring the Old World

Mira Silverstrike

Mira Silverstike is a young female dwarf who carries a strange warhammer and dresses in old fashioned clothing.

She has been in Auma for a few weeks, and arrived at Oleg’s trading post just a few days ago.

Mira was raised by her Grandfather. In Dwarven society, where clan trumps all, this is not a surprising turn of events.

Her earliest memories of her Grandfather are of the night the creatures came. She had been woken up in the late hours from a deep sleep by a gentle hand on her shoulder. Her grandfather whispered to her to quietly that he had come to visit, but something was wrong outside and she needed to follow him to keep safe.

He seemed to know all the best places to hide and would lead her to one just as soon as the creatures passed by. Many of these places were so well hidden that Mira didn’t know they had even existed until Grandfather showed her the hidden catch or the right way to move an inconspicuous boulder. She spent the rest of the night by his side, and by morning only a handful of the Dwarves in her clan still survived. To make matters even worse, Mira’s parents were killed in the massacre. Consoling her as best he could, Grandfather offered to take care of her from then as long as she would travel to his home which, was outside the caverns she had known her whole life.

Following his lead, Mira found herself deep into the roots of the mountains where it seemed no one else lived. Along the way, Grandfather would show her the best places to find water and food in all manner of caverns. Eventually they reached his home, an incredibly ornate living space carved into the side of a cavern.

While lonely, Mira had a safe and comfortable childhood. The horrors of her past faded over the years, and her mind was filled with the details day to day life. Grandfather expected her to do all the chores around the home, and to gather food. In return, she was taught how to work silver into magnificent ornamentation, how to brew the finest of Dwarven ales, battle songs and war cries of her clan and of the patron Deity of her family: Dumathoin.

Occasionally a third-cousin, or an uncle or great aunt would come to spend a few months with her and her Grandfather. During these visits they took it upon themselves to teach young Mira about their family, Dwarven customs and history. Once she was in her late twenties her Grandfather would send her out on errands to nearby clans – but would remind her not to show anyone the way back to his home – so that if the creatures ever returned they wouldn’t know where to find them.

Upon returning from one of these trips that her Grandfather met her at the door to his home. He explained that they had some very special visitors that she had not seen in a great while, and to remember to be on her best behavior.

Entering the great room, she was caught up short by the sight of her parents standing in front of the hearth. Not understanding, she collapsed to her knees. Her parents and Grandfather came up to her to comfort her and told her the truth: her Grandfather was in fact from much further back in her family line, and had been dead for over 1000 years. His spirit had reached out to Mira to save her from the creatures (which she had eventually identified as Duegar) as he recognized she had a special gift from Dumathoin to be able to communicate with her family line, all the way back to the progenitor Dwarves of Auma. In reality, Mira had spent most of her life speaking with her ancestors, only spending time with the living when her Grandfather would send her on ‘errands’.

Her parents and Grandfather explained that expeditions would begin in the outside world near Dullstrand. They felt a strong pull to the continent across the ocean, and they felt it was her duty to her to return to the ancestral homeland and discover what had happened to her people.

It was promised that she would always have her parents to be with her, as well as her Grandfather and any other family she would encounter in her travels. She would be able to call upon them and gain power from her ancestral blood. She was able to spend a few years preparing with her family again before she had to head to the surface and onward to Dullstrand. Grandfather gifted her with relics that had lain forgotten in his estate – gold, weapons and items of strong Dwarven magic. He taught her how to call upon the raw physical power of her ancestors, and her parents showed her how to harness the magical powers of clerics and oracles long dead.

Eventually the time came to move onward. Life on the surface was difficult, but she was able to get through the difficult times by finding and communing with the spirits of her people as she traveled. After a long miserable voyage across the ocean, she finally arrived in Auma. She was excited initially to see the Dwarven relics that had already been discovered and sold in Longshore, awaiting their transport back to the Flanaess. However, it was much more difficult for her to find spirits to commune with than she had anticipated. The land itself seemed barren of any Dwarven presence at all.

Hearing news that Oleg Leveton had built up a trading post on the ruins of an old Dwarven fort, she decided to travel the few days south to his home to see if she could discover anything. News that the bandit population had been dealt a blow by a chartered exploration group also made the decision easy – if nothing else, maybe these explorers had uncovered something she could use.